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Catastrophic wildfires occurring over the last several years have led land management agencies to focus on reducing hazardous fuels. These wildland fuel reduction projects will likely be concentrated in shorter interval, fire-adapted ecosystems that have been moderately or significantly altered from their historical range. But where are these situations located? What...

In: Proceedings of the 2002 Fire Conference: Managing fire and fuels in the remaining wildlands and open spaces of the Southwestern United States; December 2-5, 2002; San Diego, CA. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-189. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 39-48.

Unionidmussels were sampled in the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, Tennessee and Kentucky, from July to October 1988 with a chain grid of10 l-m2 quadrats. The chain grid was used to define 100-m2 areas along the stream bed by repeatedly moving the10-m2 rectangle upstream. Within each100-m

The extreme cost of fighting wildland fires has brought fire suppression expenditures to the forefront of budgetary and policy debate in the United States. Inasmuch as large fires are responsible for the bulk of fire suppression expenditures, understanding fire characteristics that influence expenditures is important for both strategic fire planning and onsite fire...

An analysis of the urban forest in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, reveals that this city has an estimated 2.9 million trees (encompassing all woody plants greater than 1 inch diameter at breast height [d.b.h]) with tree canopy that covers 20 percent of the city. The most common tree species are spicebush, black cherry, ash, tree-of-heaven, and boxelder, but the most...

An analysis of the urban forest in Houston, Texas, reveals that this area has an estimated 33.3 million live trees with tree canopy that covers 18.4 percent of the city. Roughly 19.2 million of the city?s trees are located on private lands. The most common tree species are yaupon, Chinese tallowtree, Chinese privet, Japanese privet, and sugarberry. Trees in Houston...

An analysis of trees in Toronto, Ontario, reveals that this city has about 10.2 million trees with a tree and shrub canopy that covers approximately 26.6 percent of the city. The most common tree species are eastern white-cedar, sugar maple, and Norway maple. The urban forest currently stores an estimated 1.1 million metric tons of carbon valued at CAD$25.0 million. In...

An analysis of the urban forest in Austin, Texas, reveals that this area has an estimated 33.8 million trees with tree canopy that covers 30.8 percent of the city. The most common tree species are Ashe juniper, cedar elm, live oak, sugarberry, and Texas persimmon. Trees in Austin currently store about 1.9 million tons of carbon (7.0 million tons of carbon dioxide [CO...

Trees in cities can contribute significantly to human health and environmental quality. In 2002, there were an estimated 26.9 million trees (36.9 trees / acre) within non-forested urban areas in Wisconsin. In 2012, the non-forest urban areas were reassessed based on 185 field plots. Urban forest attributes changed between 2002 and 2012 due, in part, to the expansion of...

An analysis of the urban forest in New York, New York, reveals that this city has an estimated 7.0 million trees (encompassing all woody plants greater than one-inch diameter at breast height [d.b.h.]) with tree canopy that covers 21 percent of the city. The most common tree species across public and private land are Norway maple, northern white-cedar, tree-ofheaven,...

Approaches for forecasting wildfire suppression costs in advance of a wildfire season are demonstrated for two lead times: fall and spring of the current fiscal year (Oct. 1?Sept. 30). Model functional forms are derived from aggregate expressions of a least cost plus net value change model. Empirical estimates of these models are used to generate advance-of-season...

An analysis of trees in the Chicago region of Illinois reveals that this area has about 157,142,000 trees with tree and shrub canopy that covers 21.0 percent of the region. The most common tree species are European buckthorn, green ash, boxelder, black cherry, and American elm. Trees in the Chicago region currently store about 16.9 million tons of carbon (61.9 million...

An analysis of trees in Douglas County, Kansas, reveals that this area has about 14,164,000 trees with tree and shrub canopy that covers 25.2 percent of the county. The most common tree species are American elm, northern hackberry, eastern redcedar, Osage-orange, and honeylocust. Trees in Douglas County currently store about 1.7 million tons of carbon (6.4 million tons...

Modeling the impacts and effects of hazardous fuel reduction treatments is a pressing issue within the wildfire management community. Prospective evaluation of fuel treatments allows for comparison of alternative treatment strategies in terms of socioeconomic and ecological impacts and facilitates analysis of tradeoffs across land management objectives (Stockmann et al...

An analysis of trees in the greater Kansas City region of Missouri and Kansas reveals that this area has about 249,450,000 trees with tree and shrub canopy that covers 28.3 percent of the region. The most common tree species are American elm, northern hackberry, Osage-orange, honeylocust, and eastern redcedar. Trees in the greater Kansas City region currently store...

The genetic and economic effects of two stages of truncation selection in a white spruce seedling orchard were investigated by computer simulation. Genetic effects were computed by assuming a bivariate distribution of juvenile and mature traits and volume was used as the selection criterion. Seed production was assumed to rise in a linear fashion to maturity and then...

Extreme fire seasons in recent years and associated high suppression expenditures have brought about a chorus of calls for reform of federal firefighting structure and policy. Given the political nature of the topic, a critical review of past trends in area burned, size of fires, and suppression expenditures is warranted. We examined data relating to emergency wildland...

Controlling wildfire suppression expenditures has become a major public policy concern in the United States. However, most policy remedies have focused on the biophysical determinants of suppression costs: fuel loads and weather, for example. We show that two non-biophysical variables?newspaper coverage and political pressure?have a significant effect on wildfire...

We present results from a Populus Regional Testing Program that has been conducted in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan over the past six years. Our objectives have been to: 1) identify highly productive, disease resistant intra- and inter-specific clonal selections and 2) understand patterns of genotype x environment interactions within the region that would,...

Twenty breeding populations of jack pine were established in 1979 and 1980 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Four populations were index populations and were each established at 4 locations by research cooperators. Sixteen populations were applied breeding populations and were established at single locations by public and private cooperators. Combined analysis of...

Years of successful fire suppression have led to high fuel loads on the nation's forests, and steps are being taken by the nation's land management agencies to reduce these fuel loads. However, to achieve desired outcomes in a fiscally responsible manner, the cost and effectiveness in reducing losses due to wildland fire of different fuel treatments in...